This happened long ago. I worked for a hospital-based home care program. We, nurse practitioners, received referrals from physicians who had exhausted all options to prolong the patients’ life. We visited the patient in his home and helped the family care for him until death. Traditional hospice services were not an option as yet.

My patient was in his 60’s or 70’s and had a ditzy wife. Just like Edith Bunker on the old All in the Family T.V. show. She looked like Edith with dark hair, a whiney voice and hands that kept flying in the air as she talked. Edith and I sat in the corner of the living room with its high ceilings, dark woodwork and antiquated furnishings talking about her husband. I think he had lung cancer. I can see him wandering around in the turn-of-the-century apartment, seemingly unaware of his wife and me. While Edith…